


In the Soft Evening Light

by toyhto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, M/M, Twenty Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 11:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12530724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: Twenty years later, Sirius is living in a cottage in Scotland and Remus is being miserable in Diagon Alley.





	In the Soft Evening Light

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having Remus/Sirius feelings again for the whole autumn so here we go: my two favourites being stubbornly lonely and sad. For a bit longer at least.
> 
> Come say hi to me [on tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com)!

Harry looks like an adult now. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the kid is 37 years old. Harry smiles at him and he blinks and realises he’s once again got lost in thoughts about how time goes by.  
  
“So, how are you?” Harry asks.  
  
“I’m fine. And I’d prefer talking about you.”  
  
“Remus,” Harry says and glances at his own hands holding a cup of tea. “Do you miss her?”  
  
“No,” he says. “I don’t.”  
  
Harry nods.  
  
“How’s Ginny?”  
  
“Fine. I think she’s coping well with the children being at Hogwarts. I suppose I’m the one who keeps wondering why the house is so empty.”  
  
“I’m sure it’ll get easier.”  
  
Harry glances at him and he goes to get the tea pan. Harry looks like he wants to ask why Remus doesn’t use magic for that but doesn’t dare. It would probably be difficult to explain that anyway. At first, he did things without magic because he had to use the time somehow, but now it’s become a habit. In some days, he’s been up for an hour or two before he realises his wand is still on the bedside table.  
  
“Have you seen Sirius?” Harry asks.  
  
Remus takes a better grip of the tea pan. “No. Why do you ask?”  
  
“It just crossed my mind,” Harry says and straightens in his chair. “I visited him last week, you know. He kept looking at me like he couldn’t believe that I’m not fifteen anymore. Almost like you’re looking at me right now. You should go see him.”  
  
“Harry –“  
  
“I think he’s lonely.”  
  
Remus pours tea to both of them. Harry keeps watching him but doesn’t mention Sirius again, and he doesn’t say that of course they’re lonely, every one of them. That’s why Sirius Black is living in a tiny cottage in the seaside in Scotland, and that’s why Remus is living in a crappy apartment in Diagon Alley, and that’s why they haven’t seen each other in, what, a year?  
  
“You should come visit us,” Harry says before he leaves, “soon.”  
  
“I will,” Remus says.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It’s a grey day with heavy clouds hanging low above his head as he slowly walks the path over the hill. He apparated a bit further away than he meant to, but maybe it’s a good thing. It’s been a long time since he’s talked with Sirius but perhaps not long enough. Or perhaps it’s just that there’s never a right time for the two of them. But that’s a quite dramatic way of seeing it and perhaps he’s a bit old for that nonsense.  
  
When Sirius bought the cottage, they all thought he’d come back to London in a few days. Or perhaps he’d buy a house near to Harry and Ginny and see the children every other day. Or perhaps he’d travel. But he stayed in the little cottage by the sea in Scotland and no one dared to ask why the hell. In the first years, Remus didn’t visit often because Teddy was little, and also he was trying to fix things with Tonks, he was always trying to fix things with Tonks for almost five years until it was ridiculously clear that there was nothing to fix. And then he realised time had gone by and he felt like it was too late already.  
  
Now Sirius is standing in the doorway when Remus finally reaches the cottage, slightly out of breath even though he walked slowly. Sirius is wearing a dark green coat that’s too big for him, which probably means that he’s been losing weight. His hair is just long enough that half of it stays in the ponytail when the wind catches the other half and throws it in his face. His mouth is in a tight smile.  
  
“What’s happened?”  
  
“Nothing,” Remus says. It’s beginning to rain.  
  
“Good,” Sirius says and steps aside from the doorway. “I’ll make you some tea.”  
  
Remus sits down in the chair by the window and tries not to stare at Sirius’ back. Sirius moves slowly as if there’s no rush but uses magic with everything, and probably it’s just that seeing Sirius always makes Remus feel kind of at the edge, but it really feels like Sirius’ magic gets under his skin somehow, as if the air is full of it, as if it’s a living, breathing thing. He blinks. He can see Sirius’ shoulder blades pushing the fabric of the pullover Sirius would never have worn when they were young.  
  
“Stop staring, Lupin.”  
  
Remus fixes his eyes on the window. Sirius turns.  
  
“I was just teasing you. I can see that you don’t get out of the flat often.”  
  
“When was the last time you left this place?”  
  
“Can’t remember,” Sirius says and nods at the cup of tea that’s floating towards Remus through the air. “How’s Teddy?”  
  
“He has a girlfriend.”  
  
“Fucking hell,” Sirius says with a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth.  
  
“I know. He’s seeing Victoire, Bill and Fleur’s daughter. You’ve met her.”  
  
“Yeah, I remember. So, is he alright?”  
  
“I think so.”  
  
“Still staying with Tonks?”  
  
“Teddy is,” he says and looks at his own hands, “in the summer at least.”  
  
“That’s what I meant,” Sirius says and sits down at the other side of the table, pushes his elbows against the wood and watches Remus. “How’re you?”  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“I am.”  
  
“Why did you come?”  
  
“I wanted to see you.”  
  
“Yes, sure. Why now?”  
  
Remus takes a sip of his tea. It’s too hot and also it’s hard to concentrate when Sirius is watching him. “Harry came to see me. He asked if I’ve seen you lately.”  
  
“Harry thinks I’m an old man who needs entertainment,” Sirius says and shrugs. “He’s right, of course. But I have a television.”  
  
“Your television is covered in dust.”  
  
“I don’t like watching people I don’t know,” Sirius says, watching him. “You’re still taking the potion for full moon nights.”  
  
“Of course,” he says and fills his mouth with tea, but when he finally swallows, Sirius is still waiting. “I’m too old for it anyway. I couldn’t do it without the potion.”  
  
“You’re too old for…”  
  
“The transformation.”  
  
“You’re not that old.”  
  
“For over fifty years,” he says and keeps his eyes in Sirius’ even though there’s something inside of him that fights back, “once a month. You know how it is. And these days it’s just… it’s enough for me that I get turned inside out. I don’t need the scratches and broken bones and everything that I used to get from trying to…”  
  
“Trying to fight it.”  
  
“But I think it’s catching me up anyway,” he says even though he definitely didn’t mean to. This is exactly why he doesn’t visit Sirius, among many other things probably. Sirius is the only person to whom he might say something like this.  
  
“What is?” Sirius asks, a low concerned voice that’s too familiar and fills every hurting gap Remus has tried to seal over the years.  
  
“Everything. The old scars. The bones I broke when I was a kid. And the…”  
  
“And the war.”  
  
“Both of them. Sometimes I wake up and I think I’m back there.”  
  
“It’s been twenty years,” Sirius says almost softly.  
  
“So there’s something wrong with me.”  
  
“Of course. There’s something wrong with the both of us. Do you want to go outside?”  
  
“It’s almost raining in there.”  
  
“I know charms that’ll warm you up like you’ve never been warmed up before.”  
  
“Don’t flirt with me,” Remus says and clears his throat.  
  
He takes his cup of tea with him. Sirius’ charm really is good, it feels like being held in a soft warm blanket even ten something minutes later, when they’re standing by the cliff and the wind is supposed to be cold, and far below the sea is crashing to the rocks with a sound that’s so persistent you’d think you could count time by it. Perhaps that’s what Sirius is doing here.  
  
“I think my magic’s getting a bit reckless,” Sirius says, looking at the horizon where the grey sea fades into the grey sky. “Sometimes I move things without meaning to.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes. You remember how I was.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I had this feeling,” Sirius says, “that it was a living thing inside of me. Or probably it was a part of me but… sometimes I wasn’t certain I could handle it, at least not in the battles. Or afterwards.”  
  
“I remember.”  
  
“I turned the lights on and off. And you just sat there in the couch and kept looking at me like you knew who I was.”  
  
“I was nineteen.”  
  
“You were very old when you were nineteen.”  
  
“We probably shouldn’t talk about the old times.”  
  
“What, then?” Sirius asks in a sharp voice, or perhaps it’s the wind catching the words. “Two or three weeks ago I went to Edinburgh. I saw a movie. In a Muggle way. It was boring but I didn’t do anything stupid.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“Have you talked with Tonks?”  
  
“Of course I have. We have Teddy.”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius says slowly, “but have you talked with Tonks? Does she know that you’re here? And does she know that you think you’re getting old?”  
  
“Of course she doesn’t,” he says and glances at Sirius, “but I _am_ getting old.”  
  
“I meant the kind of old that you’re going to die one day.”  
  
“I’m a werewolf,” Remus says, “I’m not going to live as long as you.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Sirius says and turns to him. “Listen to me. You’re going to live because you owe me that. You don’t get to die on me, Remus.”  
  
“You never come to see me.”  
  
“You never come to see me,” Sirius answers. “And fuck that. We’re lonely old men who don’t know what to do with themselves and who don’t know how to talk to each other, but at least there’s two of us. I need to know that you’re there somewhere. I’m not planning to outlive you, you idiot.”  
  
“I’m not planning to outlive you either.”  
  
“Great.”  
  
“Great.”  
  
“So, how’s the warming charm?”  
  
“Very good.”  
  
“I knew you’d love it,” Sirius says.  
  
Remus laughs. Sirius is probably watching him, but he keeps his eyes in the sea so it doesn’t count.  
  
That evening, he sits in his armchair in his tiny flat in London and listens to the sounds of people talking to each other echoing through the walls. He feels worse and better at the same time and also like there were something he should do if he only could make himself do it. He tries to read but can’t shake the feeling.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He waits for two weeks and then he figures that he could probably just give up. It’s not like he thinks about Sirius _all the time._ And he _knows_ it’d fade again if he only gave it more time, like, perhaps half a year. But sometimes when he falls asleep, he sees Sirius smiling at him as if they are seventeen again and everything’s still ahead, no mistakes have been made yet, no time has been lost. He wakes up covered in sweat. Two nights before full moon he takes his coat but forgets his shoes. There’s the faint light of the morning already lingering in the horizon and his socks are all wet when he walks the doorsteps and knocks.  
  
“Fucking hell,” Sirius says when he finally opens the door. He has his wand in his right hand but he lowers it quickly.  
  
“Sorry,” Remus says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t sleep very well and I thought –“  
  
“Come inside,” Sirius says and steps aside. “I’m going to get your feet warm.”  
  
In five minutes, Remus is sitting on the sofa that has weird stains on it and that he has actually never been sitting on, because he has only ever sat in the kitchen, because he’s never stayed that long, because perhaps he has had this mad idea that if he stays long enough, there’s absolutely nothing that’ll make him go away again. His feet are warmer than ever but in a good way and Sirius is in the kitchen, making him tea with wandless magic that he can almost _smell._ Or perhaps it’s the tea. Sirius has a t-shirt that’s hanging loosely on his shoulders.  
  
“Here,” Sirius says and the cup of tea floats to Remus’ hands.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“So, nothing’s wrong.”  
  
“Nothing’s wrong.”  
  
“I wasn’t really sleeping, either,” Sirius says and takes a few steps towards him, then stops to shift his weight from one feet to another as if he can’t decide where to sit, or whether to sit at all. Perhaps he also knows that Remus has never sat on the sofa before.  
  
“I’m –“  
  
“You can always come here,” Sirius says, looking him in the eyes, and he freezes like always, “ _always._ You know that.”  
  
“But –“  
  
“What? What do you think I might be doing that I wouldn’t want you here?”  
  
He closes his mouth. Sirius shakes his head slowly as if wondering what the hell he was thinking.  
  
“Thank you,” he says finally.  
  
“Okay,” Sirius says, walks to the chair and sits down. The chair creaks. Sirius takes his wand and mutters something and the chair straightens itself up. “So, do you want to talk?”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“Tell me about Tonks.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Tell me about _something._ ”  
  
Remus blinks. He should have done something differently. After the war – the second war, because he can’t really think about the first – he should have done something differently. Perhaps he should have visited Sirius sooner. Perhaps he should have come here more often. Perhaps he should have broken up with Tonks a lot earlier. And perhaps these things have nothing to do with each other and he’s just old and lonely and slowly losing grip of what really happened and what didn’t. But there used to be time when he knew how to tell things to Sirius, around 1976 perhaps. He could have learned it again. If only he had tried.  
  
“Why’re you staying in London?” Sirius says.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You could go anywhere. You never even liked London.”  
  
“It was just… Tonks wanted to live there and…”  
  
“Tonks?”  
  
Remus nods. The cottage is very quiet. The world outside is very quiet. In London there’s always something so he doesn’t forget that life goes on without him. But here he can almost hear Sirius holding his breath, waiting for an answer.  
  
“I’m not with Tonks anymore,” he says and then bites his lip because it’s obviously a crappy answer.  
  
“I know that,” Sirius says. “You broke up fourteen years ago.”  
  
“Fourteen years?”  
  
“Something like that. So why the hell are you staying in London? It’s not because of Tonks. Teddy can apparate now. He could visit you anywhere. You could move closer to Harry and Ginny.”  
  
Remus shakes his head. “ _You_ could move closer to them.”  
  
“No,” Sirius says in a firm voice. “You know I love them. In a way. Sometimes I think I’m not capable… sometimes I think I love the memory of James and Lily, and you and me, and…”  
  
“And Peter.”  
  
“Yes. The idea of the four of us being stupid kids in Hogwarts before any of that shit happened.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“And I know it sounds a bit mad,” Sirius says, “but I think that if I saw Harry every day, I’d run out of what I have left. And he’d realise what I am.”  
  
“He’s an adult now,” Remus says, “and he saw the war too. He’d understand.”  
  
“But sometimes I forget just for a second that he’s not James. Maybe he understands. But he shouldn’t have to. And I don’t want to see it in his eyes. He got through and he has his own life now and that’s good.”  
  
“You’re saying that we never got through, you and me.”  
  
Sirius just looks at him. The wind outside sounds like it’s trying to lift the cottage up from the ground.  
  
“Maybe it’s because of what happened in the first one,” Remus says. “And I’m sorry.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Sirius says, “I’m sorry, too. We’re going to be sorry for the rest of our lives. We messed it up bad time and we never really fixed it. More tea?”  
  
“Please.”  
  
“Here you go,” Sirius says, and the tea pan floats through the air and pours tea into the cup Remus is holding. “Why did you and Tonks break up?”  
  
“ _Sirius._ ”  
  
“Okay. Why were you together in the first place?”  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
“Teddy is a good kid, though,” Sirius says, watching him. “I suppose he got the best of both of you. That was very lucky. He could have ended up so much worse.”  
  
“I don’t think you should –“  
  
“I mean that he might have got your sadness,” Sirius says, leaning forward. “Don’t get me wrong, you know I love it. But I also think you’d be sad no matter what. It’s in you. It’s in your DNA like Muggles might say.”  
  
“And what do you know about Muggles?”  
  
“I know plenty,” Sirius says with a lazy grin that doesn’t look exactly happy. “Sometimes when I get unbearably lonely I walk to the village and sit in the pub and someone will come to talk to me.”  
  
“A nice lady probably.”  
  
“Probably. Or sometimes a man.”  
  
“But you don’t… you don’t have…”  
  
“Go on,” Sirius says, “ask me.”  
  
“You don’t have anyone. I mean, you aren’t seeing anyone.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Good,” Remus says and then bits his lip, “or of course not _good_ , I only meant that… I meant that…”  
  
“You meant exactly what you said,” Sirius says quietly, “you know that I’m as lonely as you are and it makes you feel a bit less crappy. I know it. It’s the same for me.”  
  
“I sound like an arse.”  
  
“You are,” Sirius says, a genuine smile lingering in the corner of his mouth. Remus could always tell the difference. “We both are. Tell me you aren’t seeing anyone.”  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
“I never understood the thing with Tonks.”  
  
“Me neither,” Remus says and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Sirius says. “She visits me once in a while. I think she’s actually happy these days. And she seems to think that you did your best and that it’s not your fault that your best was so… little. And as I said, Teddy is great. Your kid is great, Remus.”  
  
“He is. I’m so relieved he turned out like that.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius says and grins. “Listen. I could make you breakfast.”  
  
“I don’t want to bother you.”  
  
“You bothering me is going to be the best part of my week. And I really need some coffee now.”  
  
“I could just leave,” Remus says, “so that you could… do whatever you normally do.”  
  
“There’s no need to be cruel,” Sirius says, sounding oddly happy. “Just sit there and tell me something when I try to find something eatable.”  
  
“You should tell me something.”  
  
“Okay. A seagull was staring at me through the window glass this morning. A moment before you came.”  
  
“A seagull?”  
  
“It’s a good thing that you came, because otherwise I’d be having a talk with it by now.”  
  
“You’re odd.”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius says, walking to the kitchen and looking around as the cupboard doors open and close. “So, what the hell do people eat for breakfast?”  
  
  
**  
  
  
It’s definitely getting worse. He had a check-up at Mungo a month or two ago and he tried to casually ask the healer if that’s normal. The healer kept her eyes in his file and said that his kind doesn’t normally live this long so no one really knows, but there’s no reason to wait for it to get easier because, you know, everything goes into decay.  
  
He takes a deep breath and then coughs. He thinks he can feel it crawling inside his skin in a way it never crawled before, at least not when he was a kid. Then it was more like pain that came from nowhere, or the absent feeling that something was terribly wrong. Now he feels sick and he can’t sit nor stand nor lie down because the pain is too much. Every old scar itches and every old bone break is suddenly new, and it’s still hours until the transformation.  
  
He’s trying to make himself drink some tea when Sirius knocks on the door.  
  
“Just come in,” he calls and then hears the sound of his charms fading when Sirius pushes them away. Probably without his wand, the lucky bastard.  
  
“How did you know it was me?” Sirius says from the corridor.  
  
“I know your knock.”  
  
“You knew my knock when we were twenty-one.”  
  
“It’s still the same,” he says and holds his breath as the tea he just drank suddenly feels like a storm in his stomach.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says, stopping in the kitchen door and watching him, “what’s happening? You look like hell.”  
  
“Well,” he says in an odd, hoarse voice, “I’m a werewolf.”  
  
“No,” Sirius says, “yes, _shit,_ I know _that_ , but you look like –“  
  
“I’m an almost sixty years old werewolf who’s about to turn in a few hours,” Remus says, grabs the counter with both hands and holds his breath until he’s pretty sure that the tea is going to stay where it is. “What’re you doing here anyway?”  
  
“I came to see you,” Sirius says, “since, you know, you’re about to turn in a few hours and I’m kind of your best friend and also I have absolutely nothing else to do, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be here.”  
  
“I’ve been doing this alone for –“  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius says, “I’m sorry about that. I kind of thought you didn’t want me there anymore.”  
  
“I did… I didn’t…”  
  
“You should sit down. Your face is all white.”  
  
“I can’t sit down,” Remus says, “sitting hurts.”  
  
“And standing doesn’t?”  
  
“I thought we were supposed to live our own lives. Something like that. That’s why I didn’t ask you. I couldn’t just think that you’d come every fucking month for the rest of your life.”  
  
“I would have,” Sirius says, walks to him and grabs his elbow. He flinches. Sirius’ grip goes softer. “Okay, let’s go somewhere. Bed?”  
  
“No. My back is –“  
  
“We’ll make you a bath, then.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“If you can’t stand sitting or standing or lying down, I’m going to make you a bath and you’re going to try it.”  
  
“I’m not going to sit in a bathtub when you’re watching –“  
  
“Why the hell not?” Sirius says and there’s a hint of tired laugh in his voice. “Are you afraid that I’ll see you naked?”  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
“Because I probably will.”  
  
“I don’t care -,” Remus begins and then takes a sharp breath when something’s definitely turning around inside of him. “I don’t care about that.”  
  
“Yes, you do,” Sirius says, moving closer to him, “but I know that’s only because you’re afraid that I’ll think you’re old. You should have some faith in me.”  
  
“I have –“  
  
“Carefully,” Sirius says when they get into the bathroom. Then Sirius stops and wraps his right arm behind Remus’ back, and he leans into Sirius because there’s absolutely nothing else he could do at this point. Sirius takes his wand from the back pocket of his jeans and starts filling the bathtub up, and also the tub suddenly looks a lot bigger than it was.  
  
“I just don’t like being naked,” Remus says.  
  
“I know,” Sirius says and pats him very lightly on the shoulder. “Now get off your clothes and get into that bath.”  
  
“This is a bad idea.”  
  
“I’m going to help you.”  
  
“You don’t need to –“  
  
“Fucking hell, Remus,” Sirius says and starts pulling Remus’ pullover off, “shut up already. I’m here and I’m going to try to help you as I should have been helping you for the last twenty years. Get over it and do what I say.”  
  
It turns out that the water actually is warm and soft and quite nice compared to the alternatives. Sirius goes to the living room but leaves the door ajar, and then after a few seconds there’s a sound of a chair being placed beside the bathroom door. Remus tries to imagine Sirius Black sitting just a few feet away from him, probably wanting to take a peek but knowing that Remus can tell, but it’s all a bit absurd and so he tries to concentrate thinking about how warm the water is. He can hear Sirius breathing, and after a while Sirius begins talking about things that don’t makes sense at all, like the weather and the small village near to the cottage and what the main, and also only, road looks like in the spring, and what kind of charms he uses when the roof is leaking. Remus closes his eyes. If Sirius’ voice wasn’t so low these days, it might be possible to forget about the last twenty years. Or the last thirty-five years. Or the last forty years.  
  
Later, Sirius sits on the sofa and Remus walks a tiny circle on the carpet until he can’t walk anymore, because his knees aren’t working and his skin is turning upside down and he doesn’t have human voice anymore. When the pain eases, there’s a dog sitting in front of him, licking his face. He wonders absently whether Sirius knows how grey the dog has gone, but perhaps it’s for the best if Remus doesn’t mention that. And the dog’s eyes are still the same.  
  
In the morning, Sirius is still there. Remus lies on the floor, taking breaths that hurt deep in his lungs, and also possibly a few ribs are broken. He tries to get up but Sirius kneels down beside him and pushes his fingers gently against Remus’ side. There’s something warm lingering in his skin.  
  
“Why don’t you use your wand?” he asks in a voice that sounds dry and thin as if he’s cried the whole night, which he of course hasn’t done at least in ten years.  
  
“I don’t need it. I don’t know why. Be still or I don’t know what’s going to happen.”  
  
“That can’t be safe.”  
  
“Want me to stop?” Sirius asks and his fingertips in Remus’ skin grow colder. Remus presses his mouth shut and fixes his eyes on the ceiling. Sirius breaths out and Remus can _definitely_ hear the smile there, the smug, irritating, beautiful smile. But he probably shouldn’t think about that, especially not now when Sirius is placing his palms against Remus’ skin. And something’s happening, possibly Remus’ bones are actually getting fixed. It’s kind of unfair that Sirius can do anything he wants to. He can even fix Remus, in one way at least if not in another.  
  
“Stop thinking,” Sirius says, “you’re frowning and it’s ruining my work here.”  
  
“What’re you doing?”  
  
“I’m not exactly sure. Probably the same healing charms I learned a long time ago, only they feel different without the wand.”  
  
“You should use your wand.”  
  
“Don’t you like my hands?” Sirius asks, but certainly he doesn’t wait for an answer for a question like that. Remus closes his eyes.  
  
It’s not like he doesn’t know that in some ways this is a very bad idea. He just can’t really move right now. Sirius fixes his bones for him in a surprising accuracy and he just lies there and leans into Sirius’ touch. Perhaps Sirius doesn’t notice. Or perhaps Sirius thinks Remus is lonely, which is, of course, true. Or perhaps Sirius knows it’s not just about that.  
  
“It really looked like it’s getting worse,” Sirius says later, when he’s drinking coffee and Remus is trying to drink tea and the morning light falls through the windows and onto the carpet in the living room.  
  
Remus stares into his cup of tea.  
  
“You shouldn’t do it alone,” Sirius says.  
  
“I can handle it.”  
  
“It’s really not about that.”  
  
“I don’t want you to –“  
  
“What, get off my house once a month to help you?”  
  
“I didn’t mean it like that.”  
  
“I know exactly what you meant. But listen to me. It shouldn’t have gone like it did. We fucked up, you and me. I should have come over even though you had a baby and you were married, and to Tonks of all people. And you should have come to my cottage and kicked me out and dragged me to your place. I should have been there for every single full moon.”  
  
“Sirius –“  
  
“Just promise me,” Sirius says, watching him, “promise me that we’re going to fix it.”  
  
“I don’t know how.”  
  
“I know we can’t change anything that happened, but from now on it’s going to have be different.”  
  
Remus opens his mouth, because clearly it isn’t that simple. There’s too much that’s happened and too much that hasn’t and no way to tell which things are which. He’s quite certain he’ll spend the rest of his life feeling he should apologise for believing for thirteen years that Sirius had betrayed him, and also sometimes he thinks that, impossibly, illogically, he’s still angry at Sirius for believing for a short time in 1981 that he could betray Sirius. And aren’t they too old anyway, too old to be anything else than what they are, old friends who messed up in more ways than should have been possible and then ran away from each other for twenty years? But Sirius is watching him with the same grey eyes that watched him when he was still young and didn’t know how it was going to end, and he’s never really been able to say no to Sirius.  
  
“I missed you,” he says.  
  
Sirius looks surprised and then smiles slowly. “I missed you, too.”  
  
“I missed you more than you’ll ever know.”  
  
“Oh?” Sirius says. “How much exactly?”  
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
“No, I need an exact amount. Something measurable. Because I’ve been lonely for twenty years. And much longer, except that one summer I spent in your cottage before the second war got really crazy.”  
  
“If I could go back there,” Remus says, and his heart is beating faster which probably isn’t healthy in his current condition, despite Sirius’ very effective healing charms, “I’d do something differently.”  
  
Sirius laughs in quiet voice. “Would you? So, what would that be? Imagine we’re back there in your cottage that’s full of your dad’s old stuff and you make me tea. What would you change?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“Yes, you do.”  
  
“I really don’t. But I feel like it could have ended differently.”  
  
“But then I got stuck in Grimmauld’s Place,” Sirius says, “and it just got crazier, or perhaps I went a bit insane because I _really_ hated that place. Dumbledore shouldn’t have kept me there. And then in some point I realised you were with Tonks and I don’t even know how that happened.”  
  
“Me neither.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Sirius says and leans closer. “You had a crush on her because she was young and beautiful and believed she’d still be happy.”  
  
Remus pulls his shoulders back. Sirius is biting his lower lip and staring at him, as if they’re really talking about something important here.  
  
“I felt younger when I was with her,” he says, “and less like all I could remember was all the mistakes I had done.”  
  
“I couldn’t believe it,” Sirius says in a low voice, “and I know this sounds bad but I think I couldn’t believe it because I had never thought you’d find someone. I thought it’d be you and me, always. Like, we both were these lonely ruined men who’d never have a relationship.”  
  
“It could’ve been you,” Remus says, “you know, you could’ve been the one of us who had a relationship.”  
  
Sirius laughs in a barking tone and then stands up, and it feels as if something’s crashed into the floor.  
  
“I have to go,” Sirius says.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Sorry. I think I have to get back.”  
  
“Okay,” Remus says and stands up as well. He has to grab the corner of the table to keep himself up but otherwise he’s doing quite well.  
  
“I’m doing some research,” Sirius says, looking at a point somewhere over Remus’ left shoulder, “that’s what I’ve been doing for the past five… ten years. Research. I’m studying how magic occurs in nature and how it changes through seasons. Or I’m trying to study that. It’s an odd thing.”  
  
“Sounds exciting.”  
  
“Yeah, it is,” Sirius says and glances at him, “probably I’ll die before I get the article finished. But it doesn’t matter because it’s kind of a hobby anyway, something to keep me busy and to distract me from… things.”  
  
“ _Things._ ”  
  
“You know I have savings. From selling my parents’ place. I can’t believe some idiot actually bought it, but I suppose I should be grateful and not –“  
  
“ _Sirius._ ”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius says and takes a deep breath. They’re standing in the corridor now. “Are you okay? I can stay if you need me to.”  
  
“I’m fine,” he says.  
  
“Great,” Sirius says. “I’ll see you later.”  
  
“Okay,” Remus says, and then Sirius is gone.  
  
  
**  
  
  
This time, Sirius doesn’t wait for him in the doorway. He’s quite certain that Sirius knows he’s coming anyway, because that’s just the kind of a thing Sirius always used to know. It’s really a bit disappointing that nothing was able to save them from doubting each other, not even Sirius’ odd, unexplainable, wandless magic that sometimes was like sixth sense. Remus knocks on the door and then pushes it open, and it goes smoothly as if the cottage is trying to pull him in.  
  
“I’m in the kitchen,” Sirius’ voice calls him.  
  
He really tried to wait for a couple of days, or at least _a_ day. He bought red wine, drank a few glasses of it, wrote a sentimental letter to Teddy and then burned it, wrote another to Sirius and read it for a few times before burning it, too, in which point he had also cried a little. It’s very unfortunate that crying, among other things, seems to take more strength now that he’s getting older. Finally he put the wine bottle to the upper shelf and thought he was going to take just a little walk outside the flat, only to clear his head, and then he apparated ten feet away from Sirius’ front door.  
  
He walks to the kitchen. Sirius is leaning to the table with both elbows. There’re papers on the floor and they look like they might be about Sirius’ research. Remus thinks about picking them up but that seems like an odd thing to do because Sirius apparently doesn’t care. There’re also a few bottles of beer and a half-eaten sandwich on the table.  
  
“You came here,” Sirius says, watching him.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
He takes a chair and sits down so that he can face Sirius. It’s probably a mistake but those are kind of his thing at this point.  
  
“I’m sorry I left so suddenly,” Sirius says. His eyes are drifting a little but he can’t be that drunk, so he has to be just avoiding Remus. “I just got… I don’t even know.”  
  
“I said something stupid.”  
  
“No,” Sirius says and shakes his head, “no, it wasn’t you. It was me. We’ve been so many things, you and me. Sometimes I think that my whole life is wrapped around you, like you’re in the middle of everything I am and everything I do and every fucking little thing in my life. And it’s just… it’s a lot to handle.”  
  
“You’re in the middle of everything I do, too.”  
  
“I can’t believe you married Tonks.”  
  
Remus grabs one of the bottles but it’s already empty.  
  
“You married _Tonks_ ,” Sirius says, “who’s so much younger, and of course there’s nothing wrong with being _young_ , and I’m not saying that there was anything wrong with you marrying Tonks, because obviously I couldn’t say that, it’s not my place, you and me, we weren’t… _obviously_ you were free to marry whomever you wanted to. But _Tonks_ is my _cousin._ She’s almost like me but younger and…”  
  
“Sirius –“  
  
“A woman,” Sirius says, “she’s a woman.”  
  
“Yes,” Remus says. The room is quickly getting dark. Someone should put the lights on, but they certainly work with magic and he would never dare to mess with Sirius’ magic. And besides, he can read the lines in Sirius’ face even in the dark. He can tell that Sirius is upset even if the both of them are trying to pretend they don’t know that.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says in a hoarse, tired voice, “you know I’m gay.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You’ve always known.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“But I never told you.”  
  
“I knew.”  
  
“How?” Sirius asks and keeps glancing at him, short, nervous glances that don’t last long enough that Remus could really see his eyes.  
  
“I don’t know. It was kind of obvious.”  
  
“But I wasn’t even in love with you,” Sirius says and takes a sharp breath that sounds like a broken laugh, “I think I wasn’t. But how the hell would I know? And then I came back and you were there. The only thing in the world.”  
  
“Me and Harry.”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius says, “but it was different about Harry. In the beginning, every time I saw Harry I had to keep telling myself he wasn’t James and that I wasn’t having a dream in which we were kids again and James was alive. He was my first crush, you know. It was so weird. I never told him. We were perhaps fourteen and I just kept staring at him in the showers. But he never said a thing so maybe he didn’t notice.”  
  
“I shouldn’t have married Tonks,” Remus says, “not like that. Not when the war was going on. But it felt like we were running out of time. And everyone grabbed whatever they could find.”  
  
“But you loved her.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“For a while.”  
  
“I still do,” he says even though it feels somehow odd, as if he’s trying to turn the world upside down by saying the wrong things, “in a way, not just like… I’m not in love with her. I can’t even imagine it anymore.”  
  
“You could never imagine things,” Sirius says in a soft, quiet voice.  
  
“That’s probably true.”  
  
“I think happiness works like that. You have to imagine it. If you can’t imagine it, there’s no way you can get it. Because it’s not something that really _exists._ It’s just… when things are well enough, you have a chance but only if you can believe in it.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“I’m not blaming you,” Sirius says and takes a deep breath. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”  
  
Remus shakes his head.  
  
“That’s not good enough,” Sirius says and straightens his back. “Tell me.”  
  
“I miss you.”  
  
“I just saw you this morning.”  
  
“I missed you the moment you left.”  
  
“No, you didn’t.”  
  
“I’ve missed you twenty fucking years, Sirius.”  
  
“You were married.”  
  
“I’m not married anymore.”  
  
Sirius eyes him as if he’s not certain whether that’s true.  
  
“It’s getting pretty dark,” he says.  
  
“Fine,” Sirius says and waves his hand, and then there’s faint light coming from nowhere. It lingers in the corners of the room and on the ceiling and, impossibly, in Sirius’ fingers as well.  
  
“Don’t look at my fingers,” Sirius says.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“What does it mean that you aren’t married anymore? What the fuck does it mean?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Remus says. His heart feels heavy in his chest. Perhaps it’ll fail him and then it’s going to be great that Sirius has this insane luck with magic because there wouldn’t be enough time to get Remus to Mungo. He almost laughs aloud and Sirius looks like Remus just hit him in the face.  
  
“You don’t know,” Sirius says.  
  
“You never were in love with me,” Remus says, and _oh fucking hell_ he’s certainly going to have a heart attack. And Sirius is watching him in a way that suggests he sees straight through Remus. “You never said anything.”  
  
“I’ve never been with anyone,” Sirius says. “I can’t believe I’m so crappy at being gay. Once I gave a hand job to a guy in the pub in the village but it didn’t feel like anything at all.”  
  
“I don’t know what you want from me.”  
  
“And I think I kissed Fabian Prewett in the first war. I was probably trying to imagine he was James, or possibly you, or possibly either one of you. I don’t know anymore. I didn’t think I was in love with you, but _Remus_ , you and me, we were… we were the only thing that made sense to me.”  
  
“You should have said something.”  
  
“I should have kissed you,” Sirius says, staring at him over the table. The lights are wavering.  
  
“Perhaps,” Remus says.  
  
“Perhaps? _Perhaps?_ ”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You would’ve kissed me back?”  
  
“Probably not,” Remus says, and Sirius laughs in a nervous tone, “probably I’d have pushed you back and yelled at you and then we’d have had some kind of an argument about it and then possibly I’d have kissed you back.”  
  
“ _Really?”  
_  
“You can’t be that surprised.”  
  
“I’m not,” Sirius says, “I’m not _surprised_ , it’s just that… we are fucking fifty-seven years old now, Remus.”  
  
“Yeah”, Remus says, “it seems that we’ve been a bit slow with this thing.”  
  
“I’m going to warn you now, because you should realise that you’ve almost told me that I might have had a chance or possibly that I still do, and I’m not going to let you walk out of that door anymore or otherwise you’ll disappear for another twenty years and I just can’t take it, no, I’ll follow you and talk to you until you promise to –“  
  
“I’m not going to walk out of that door.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Why the hell did you buy this place anyway? I never thought you were of the kind who disappears in the middle of nowhere.”  
  
“No,” Sirius says, “but you were. And I never thought you’d stay in London, not alone at least. I thought you’d buy a cottage from the country-side.”  
  
“I think I could live, like, by the sea. Somewhere pretty far away from London. Possibly in Scotland.”  
  
“You could?” Sirius says very quietly.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I think that when I bought this place, I was thinking about you. That’s the only reason why I’d have bought something like this. And how fucked up is that? You were _married._ ”  
  
“Sirius,” Remus says and takes one more deep breath, “I’m not married anymore. I’m here. I’m fifty-seven and messed up and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but I’m here.”  
  
“I suppose you aren’t waiting for wild sex,” Sirius says.  
  
Remus smiles before he realises he’s doing it.  
  
“Because honestly I don’t know if I’m able to,” Sirius keeps going, and he’s smiling almost as if he’s still twenty years old and all the mistakes are yet to be done. “It’s very possible that I won’t be able to fulfill your dreams about gay sex.”  
  
“Me neither.”  
  
“Oh,” Sirius says, “you will, because, you know, I have this dream that you’d sleep in my bed, drool on my pillow, snore a little, things like that. And then in the morning I’d wake up and find that you’re still there.”  
  
“That’s wild.”  
  
“Yes”, Sirius says, “it is.”  
  
“You could also kiss me.”  
  
Sirius stands up. The room is getting darker again even though Sirius certainly isn’t doing anything, at least not consciously, or at least Remus thinks so. He should probably ask, only it’s difficult to talk when Sirius is looking at him like that. He thinks Sirius is going to kiss him.  
  
“Really?” Sirius asks.  
  
“Yeah,” Remus says and stands up.  
  
“Now? Now of all times?”  
  
“I think so.”  
  
“And you’ll stay afterwards.”  
  
“If you want me to.”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius says and walks around the table, stops in front of him and smiles.  
  
“Then I’ll stay. But what if I shove you off the bed at night?”  
  
“Then I’ll crawl back in. Certainly you realise that I’m going to kiss you now?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Well, it’s fucking time already,” Sirius says and places his palm on the side of Remus’ face. It feels odd and also like Remus has been waiting for it for at least forty years. “Here we go.”


End file.
